‘I couldn’t stop reading it’

Message: Dear Mira,
I read your mother’s book with delight within just one shebbath. I couldn’t stop reading it. I am 26 years old french jew, and both my parents were born in small village in Morocco. Since I was a child, I was obsessed with my background, my roots, and my grandparents’ and parents’ lives in Morocco, side by side with muslims. I used to ask my grandparents thousands of questions about how it was back then…Shebbath, marriage,new-born, everyday life…And while I was reading your mother’s book, I could hear my grandmother (1919-2005)telling me word for word the same stories, execpt our judeo-arabic dialect is different…
I talked about this book to my parents, my uncles, and a lot of other people, and they all wanted to read it. Unfortunately, moroccan jews and/or french jews don’t speak english…I think this book could speak to any jew who grew in peace with muslims, such as moroccan jews who are largely settled in France. No old moroccan jew ever took the time to do what your mom did, but I think you should translate and publish this book in French. A lot of french jews of moroccan, algerian, tunisian or egyptian descent would love to read this book. That would be great.

Thanks so much for your beautiful book,
Take care,
Oury Marciano

‘The eternal daughter of Baghdad’

http://www.kitabat.com/i57185.htm

Baghdad: Oranges, Lemons, Almonds and an Apple Poisoned by Oil

By Hussein Abdul Zahra Majeed*

Iraqi Violette Shamash shows us in her marvellous book ‘Memories of Eden’ how people and their lives disappear like traces of chalk wiped off a blackboard.

Life in a rich secure country like Iraq does not allow us to feel the way history disappears in another country. Violette here speaks of her family, Iraq’s Jews and of the way in which they lived in the 40’s during the last century.

But past and future are present everywhere on this earth, wherever people eat, drink and sleep and demand freedom! That is the calamity to which history has no solution. Wherever we go, climbing mountains, passing through valleys or deserts, there is bound to be a trace that says: yesterday they were here, but today nothing but the wind.  Here, we who felt flat our faces require a live eyewitness who says I lived and saw. The witness here is Mrs Violette Shamash who wrote this marvellous book before passing away three years ago.

Her daughter Mira says that in her last days, under the influence of anaesthetic, she repeated the name of Baghdad on her death bed, and referred to the house there in Karrada: the Castle! the Castle! A castle in the Karrada and the Sind, of which nothing remains now but the gates of the concrete Green Zone. The daughter adds that immediately after the fall [of Baghdad] in 2003, her mother told her that it was time to go there, to Baghdad, home! She wanted to go to Baghdad despite being an old lady of 94, to return to tell her daughter about the traces of what she found there, of what remains of the good people of Agd Al Nasarah who are now in a state of poverty.

In 1998, the Americans wanted to give us some manners in their Hollywood style, so they poured tons of bombs on Baghdad. We all witnessed this spectacle. But we were surprised by Mr Nasir Shama on the air dedicating his musical composition to the children of Palestine. The false myth of Arab glory.

Man is amazing, a creature unknown before today. While Mrs Shamash watches Saddam Hussain’s statue collapsing in Ferdows Square initially, all she says to her daughter is that she was born 25 years before him, before the Iraqi state was created, before the arrival of the first king Ghazi, the British army with its victorious parade in what was then the main square, Agd Al Yahood, then referred to as Piccadilly, and that in the name of democracy as well. History repeats itself. As for people, Baghdad’s roofs, sunrise discourse, all that is lost, and will not be resurrected for us other than through the pen of the late Violette Shamash, that is what has happened.

Let names live, let us call you the Mother of Baghdad, of castles, of sunrises, of crowns and witnesses. The eternal daughter of Baghdad.

In 1941, the population of Baghdad was one million, of which 300, 000 were jews, 40% of the population. It is the year of the Farhud, the year in which the English Sir Kinahan Cornwallis refused to intervene to bring order to the stricken city, and allowed people to be murdered in the street. Shamash heard the wailing of the widows at night, while her house was guarded by a group of Baghdad’s principled and upright young men.

After exactly half a century, in 1991, the American General Schwartzcoff  refuses to intervene to bring security to wounded Iraq. It is no more than 12 years before he enters again in the name of democracy.

Thank you for the marvellous book.

*Professor, College of Arts, University of Basra, Iraq.

Joining us for our presentation next Sunday in London will be Wall Street Journal writer Lucette Lagnado, who was born in Cairo and grew up in the United States. Lucette is the author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, which tells of her family’s exodus from Old Cairo to the New World.

Full details of the event here

Discover more about the Jewish Book Week programme  here

Opening times and how to get there, here

The main venue is the Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way (off Russell Square). Our event is taking place in the Institute of Education, opposite.

Look forward to seeing you there!

God is great: A musical fatwah

WALLACE LYON was Provincial Administrator in Kurdistan after World War One when Britain created Iraq and tried desperately to forge the new country from three broken pieces of the Ottoman Empire.  In Memories of Eden, Violette recalls how the Shi’a Muslims of Basra, the Sunnis of Baghdad and the Kurds of Mosul  had never been linked before; their people did not like each other, and the only thing in common they had was a dislike of central control.  Mr Lyon had other insights. He writes about “bringing Sulaimani under Iraqi rule” and the unusual difficulties encountered in relation to that  sacrilegious modern invention, the gramophone.

“THE favourite relaxation of the local Kurds was to sit on benches outside the café exchanging gossip… while drinking endless glasses of sweet tea… There was also gramophone music purveyed from old-fashioned machines with wide trumpet-shaped horns. Across the mouth of the horns was a string net adorned with screwed up pieces of paper which attracted my attention, and on further investigation the following explanation was given.

When gramophones first made their appearance in Kurdistan the mullahs of the orthodox Moslem religion at once perceived that this new invention would encourage the people to stay around the tea shops instead, as was customary, of spending most of their time in the courtyards of the mosques.  For in those days the mosque was the centre of culture, information and learning, and it was common practice for the mullahs, who had the latest information on the bazaar, to advise the ignorant peasant to go with one of the mosque servants to one of their own agents, where they were told they would get an honest deal instead of going to the open market where they would be victimized.

Infidel music

This practice brought in good pickings for the Holy Men, though sometimes, when the peasant returned home with a wretched piece of short measure cloth, he would get a wigging, if not worse, from a long-suffering and over-worked wife.

So the mullahs issued a ‘fatwah’ or ban on the new machines on the plea that they gave forth infidel music and culture.  But the mullahs’ union was not a completely closed shop, and one or two junior and less affluent clerics saw their chance.  For a reasonable fee they wrote out some verses of the Koran, and these, when hung at the mouth of the gramophone, would act as a filter and all sounds passing through would be disinfected, pure, sanitary and inoffensive to the ears of  all true believers…”

An extract from  Kurds, Arabs and Britons: The Memoirs of Wallace Lyon in Iraq 1918-44  published by I.B.Tauris (2002) ISBN 1860646131, 9781860646133

‘Memories’ honoured

 Breaking news. The Jewish Book Council in the USA has just sent us the following: 

Dear Tony & Mira,

Congratulations!  On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Book Council, I am happy to inform you that, out of our many submissions, your book:

Memories of Eden

by

Violette Shamash; Mira and Tony Rocca, eds. 

has been selected as a finalist of the 

2008 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD

in the category of

Sephardic Culture

 

This book was selected after careful analysis by a panel of three judges who are all authorities in their field. The judges encountered a great deal of difficulty in making their decisions this year. Several categories offered many viable candidates, which made the selection even harder. It is gratifying to know there is a wide range of Jewish content books available. Your book now joins the ranks of the hundreds of well-respected, classic Jewish books that have been National Jewish Book Award finalists. The National Jewish Book Awards, now in its 58th year, is the longest-running program of its kind in North America. 

We recognize and appreciate your editorial decision to publish a book of such high quality; one that enlarges the whole enterprise of Jewish scholarship and contributes to informed living, understanding, and entertainment for the entire English-reading world.

Sincerely yours,

Mimi Frank

Chairperson

______________

• The presentation of the National Jewish Book Awards will be at a gala ceremony, open to the public, at 7:30pm on Thursday, March 5th, at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York City

More from our mailbag

Recently we have received two letters from Iraqis of widely differing backgrounds and beliefs, who have been moved to write after reading Memories of Eden. The sentiments expressed embody the harmony that Violette talks about in her book, proving that the spirit lives on even if  the reality on the ground in today’s Iraq is somewhat different. Here they are in full, unedited.

‘As a community we will not survive’

Thank you a lot for showing the real Iraq and how we lived in harmony. I am born in 1960 in Baghdad, my doctor was a Jew his name Dauod Kubaya, and the nurse that used to give me injections and I ran away from her (Rahma) also she was a Jew. I remember her.

Classic Mandaean pictography. Iraqi Mandaeans are an ancient Middle East religious group who revere John the Baptist.

I am a Mandaean (followers of John the Baptist),we lived like you a good life, I spent all my school years in (Rahebat Altakdema),this was a catholic school on the Tigris river very famous.

My mother had many Jews friends.

We always think about you.

Although I cried a lot but for the first time I felt really as if I was there, all her discription was right.

Now I am living in Australia and nothing left for us just the memories.

We are scattered everywhere.  I have 5 sisters, 2 in England senior doctors consultants, another doctor in Canada, another in Sweden, and another in Holland.

Historically it is said that we are Jews originally and we came from Israel 2000 years ago.  We are Gnostic. I am not a religious person but I love  my people…the Mandaean.  Almost 90% left Iraq, we were about 60,000, now left only 5,000.

Woodcut: 'Exterminating Mandaean culture'

As a community we will not survive.

Mandaeans are stranded in Syria and Jordan as refugees.

And all of them are very well educated and they have nowhere to go.

At least you have Israel, but we don’t have that backbone to keep us safe, our country Iraq has been taken from us, hijacked by those extremists.

The religion and the culture is going to disappear.

I heard a lot about the Iraqi Jews and how nice they were.

I heard stories from my father and the house where we lived in the late Fifties was owned by a Jewish man In Battawyeen (Bustan Al Kass).

And the Jewish man before leaving asked my father to take all the gold he had which was a fortune and just give him 100 Dinars, but my father refused, he said How can I receive that money? First because it was against his will to sell, and secondly it is not equal.

There were many honest people during that time and till now.

And the Jewish  man said Oh my God, you are an honest man and I am not lucky.

I am still afraid to speak out loudly because I have cousins still living in Baghdad. Forgive me, I don’t want you to write my name, just write what I said about our memories.

And thank you so much.

And maybe we will meet one day.

(Name withheld by request)

 

‘It’s your land as it’s ours’

Hi there,

I don’t know you but… I just want to say Hi for all Iraqi Jews in Israel or out of it.

I am a Muslim from Baghdad originally from Nineveh. I believe that it’s not fair what had happened to you and to all of us, it’s your land as it’s ours and now we are all out of it , the land means where you have …

During the late 8th and 7th centuries B.C., the city of Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire and the cultural, economic and political epicentre of the world. In an effort to preserve the rich archaeological history of Nineveh, the US National Endowment for the Humanities has provided funding for this digitization project, based at the University of California, Berkeley. There is a further description of the project here:http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/digital-nineveh-archives

I lived from 1974 till 2003 in Eden, it wasn’t  good days but it’s really Eden. I believe that all Iraqi Jews should return to Iraq as before bcs religion is not a motive of nations, I mean any religion can live anywhere, it’s not a politic issue it’s personal think

Violence is now a part of the daily life world wide, but really I feel Iraqis are more than others who had suffered more than others: inside their land ( bcs always no fair governments ) as well as out side the land (bcs of hardly homesickness), drinking of dijla (Tigris ) water is another water.  You won’t understand my words, but I swear it has a great effect that remain all the life.

I am proud of what you did, this web site is so nice and full of good information in photos, I wish I can have some of them… I am doing now my PhD research in Italy about ‘ the architectural Identity of the city of Baghdad’ and I studied lots of our Jews history.

Just want to give you my compliments

— M.K.

 

 

How to behave in Iraq

As the year turns and US troops look forward to extricating themselves finally from Iraq, a guide has appeared that sets out how to achieve victory in the battle for hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Surfacing now, six years after the invasion, it may come as a surpise — and certainly qualifies as tardy. However, it has lain buried even longer than that: This little tome predates Shock and Awe by all of sixty years.

An ambassador of goodwill

Events in Iraq in 1941, described in Memories of Eden, resulted in a British invasion and a pogrom (the Farhud) which foretold the end of the oldest Jewish community in the Diaspora. Churchill had ordered regime change in Baghdad after a Nazi tyrant seized power, threatening Britain’s vital oil interests.

One year later, US forces were sent to Iraq to help protect the oil fields and deliver supplies to Russia under Roosevelt’s Land Lease programme. To make sure they fulfilled their roles as ‘ambassadors of goodwill’ they were presented with what constituted a crash course in local history, culture, customs and language. Originally published in 1943 by the War and Navy Departments in Washington DC, it has since lain on the shelves, forgotten, until now. With poignant timing, it has been reproduced in facsimile edition* and makes fascinating reading in the light of recent history.

To quote the Preface of this 2008 edition: ‘For many Americans, Iraq conjured up romantic images of “the mysterious East” conveyed in early films, while for others it was completely unknown… The Guide inculcates a respect for the local civilization, its people, and its culture, attaching the utmost importance to a proper understanding of religious practice and the avoidance of unintended insult or injury based on ignorance of beliefs and customs.’

Read more, and some excerpts, in Features.

Happy New Year!

*Dark Horse Publications, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9556221-0-6. £4.99/$10.00.

Fox News

We sent a JPEG Christmas card to friends around the world over the weekend, prior to posting it here. We hope you like it – and would like to comment.  Scroll down after the image to see some of the reactions we’ve received so far! 

No way to prove it but my father did ride with the English on at least one hunt and the gentleman in the grey riding habit has the stature that resembles my father. – M.L, Montreal

 Iraq was not the only unlikely venue for foxhunting. There was one here: it went under the name of the Ramle Hunt and, as far as I remember, was active between the wars. There are foxes here, but, as in Iraq, jackals were the usual quarry. – R.A, Jerusalem

My father served in Mesopotamia between the wars and in those British Colonial days it was always referred to as Messpot.  – J.V, London

Priceless. You’d never believe it’s Iraq!­ – S.E, Brussels

I am enjoying reading your book. Many similar memories. Cheerio!! (as we used to toast in Northern Iraq!!, probably another British “alcoholic” influence). ­–Y.S, Los Angeles

This raises all sorts of questions, such as how did the indigenous population react to being treated like an extension of  British Indian rule? – G.K, London

What an amazing Christmas card – absolutely the best I’ve received. – N.D, London

Ek sao das means one hundred and ten.  Ek is one, sao is hundred, das is ten.  I still remember some of the Hindustani I used while living in Calcutta.

The British seem to have mesmerized the people in their colonies and in mandated Iraq to emulate their “pukka Sahib” ways. – D.M, Toronto

Sorry, I wrote “ex sao das” and stand corrected. By ‘ek! – Tony

About Tally Ho!

Pam in Montreal has just written to say: “I think (until someone tells me better) that Tally Ho is straight from the Arabic (come this way, follow me), something Crusaders could have picked up?”

Nice one, Pam!  The mem-Sahib here has been trying that out with her Arabic (it sounds plausible:  ta’allee hon! ) but I can’t find anything to back it up on the net.  There’s a likelier possibility that it came from old French:

Two hundred years ago, according to a magazine of that date, the English fox-hunter’s cry was

” Tallio, Hoix, Hark, Forward,” which is a corruption of the French hunter’s call. Four hundred years ago the French hunter encouraged his dogs with the musical cry of “Thia-hilaud a qui forheur!” sometimes printed “Tya-hillaut a qui forheur!” (These huntsmen’s shouts are given in a quaint and rare old French book illustrated with the strange pictures of the day and entitled “La Venerie de Jacques du Fouilloux, a Paris 1573.”) From this the English manufactured “Tallio, hoix, hark, forward.” Later it has been abbreviated to simply “Tally-ho.”

I picked that up from  http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/13/messages/652.html

Wikipedia seems to agree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally-ho

Anyone any ideas?

Happy Christmas/Hannukah

We’re almost there, and wherever you are we wish you all the Compliments of the Season.

It’s been a busy time in the Roccary: MR is cooking up wondrous meals while planning an Iraqi feast for New Year’s Eve (t’beet, or not t’beet?), and TR has been cooking his head with WordPress. The results are on show now. The major changes are in Features and Press Reviews (in the menu bar at top). The geek department apologizes for an inability to come to terms with ‘jump  to’ links. Maybe there’s someone out there who can help (or understand what he’s saying)?

We’re sending our greetings electronically this year, using the lovely Jacquie Lawson website which is not only highly original and clever, but light years from Hallmark.

Merry whatever to all our readers!

Tony & Mira